Where to Find Me Online!

Folks, this blog is at its end. You can find me on social media in the following places:

uberwench

uberwench

uberwench

Yes, I'm Alive!

I have finished library school and I'm now working full time as a librarian at a local public library. I love it! However, I'm still settling in to my new role, working full time, and commuting more than I would like; therefore, I haven't had a lot of time for fibre-y goodness. That is changing! I am taking some Kettle-dyed merino top down to The Loop on Barrington today and a few weekends ago I taught a 4-hour art yarn workshop to my spinning and weaving guild. Lots of fun! I'll be doing a ton of fibre work over the summer to be able to participate in the next Halifax Crafters show.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Yarny Goodness

Spring is around the corner, and so too is the Halifax Crafters Spring market! I have been spinning beautiful yarns for the past few months, and this weekend the dye pots will be steaming as I dye up some squishy Merino top, some new Blue Faced Leceister/Tussah Silk top, Masham sliver, and some yarns. I've got some really nice sock yarn to do up, and I'm going to pick up some worsted this weekend to round out my offerings. I'm hoping a last-minute batch of sparkly sock-yarn will make it in in time for me to dye it from the show--my supplier was out of it last month when I was placing my base orders.

In the meantime, I will leave you with some tantalizing pictures of recent handspun yarns!

Cold Weather = Warm Woolies!

I love winter. There, I said it. Boo and hiss all you want, but as a fibre artist, I love using all my lovely woolies to keep me warm. They look sad in their baskets and drawers all summer, and I'm happy to wear them again.

My place is covered in fibre, as I'm once again preparing for the Halifax Crafters market, the 2012 Beary Merry Market! I'm dyeing up lots of merino top, will have plenty of carded batts and novelty fibres, and I've got some new things on my table: hand knit slouchy hats made from hand spun yarn, blanket felt mittens in many colours, French press cozies, tea cozies, and more! I'm very excited and have been having fun prototyping new designs this fall.

 I call this colour-way Alien Bees. It's dry now and put up in braids, and looks spectacular!

I'm also planning to card some batts based on the colours of my favourite gemstones. So far I've dreamed up Labradorite, Rainbow Moonstone, Carnelian, and Amethyst. What are your favourites?

Fibre Everywhere!

There is a new batch of kettle-dyed merino at The Loop, and also at Gaspereau Valley Fibres. The Loop also got some handspun yarn and some kettle-dyed commercial yarns, so if you're looking for something bright and cheery, or luxurious, you know where to go.

I guess Tulasi Zimmer of The Joy of Handspinning dropped in to The Loop today while visiting town, and picked up some of my merino top! It's so exciting! I'm looking forward to more dyeing in the future.

If anyone has leads on a sparkly sock yarn base, let me know. I like glitter a lot, and apparently so do Halifax sock knitters!

A Librarian For Realz!

Whoa! I'm finally done--I have a Master of Library and Information Studies. I will now hopefully have more time to update the blog with all my fibre-y doings, and also to get a proper website up to show off everything I've been doing. I've been Instagramming a bit on my iPhone, which goes to my Tumblr and then to Twitter and Facebook, but haven't had much time for longer posts.

For example: The month after I finished school I prepped for Halfiax Crafters, did Halifax Crafters, worked a few jobs, taught bellydance, and just tonight I taught my first class of four down at NSCCD, the Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design.

Convocation is next week, and I'm hoping things calm down a bit for me. Perhaps my spinning students will let me post pictures of their yarns!

Halifax Crafters Production Schedule

The next Halifax Crafters market is on May 5th and 6th, and I've been accepted to vend again. Yay! What that means is that I need to get my butt in gear and make some stuff! On the production list:

Kettle-dyed merino top
Sparkly batts
Tea cozies
French press cozies
Handspun yarn
Hand-dyed commercial sock yarn (with glitter in it!)

So, for the next month I will be busy dyeing a new batch of nylon Firestar, some sari silk ribbon yarn that I got, and doing some carding and spinning. I also need to spin up samples for the class I am teaching at the NSCCD in May on spinning novelty & art yarns. In April I will dye the commercial yarn and the merino top, continue with the spinning and possibly doing some knitting. That will also be cozy-making time!

I'll be finishing grad school as well, somewhere in amongst all that. Also applying for jobs. Eek!

Double Rainbow!

Here are the results of some rainbow dyeing I did on commercial grey wool and white Merino top.

The Dye Pots Are On!

This morning I set nearly 3kg of fibre to soak to open up the follicles in preparation for dyeing. The bulk of it is Merino top, but I also put up 225g of Milk Protein fibre, a bit of some lovely grey alpaca top, and 225g of nylon icicle/firestar for some experimenting. I think I will also do up some cheesecloth bags with silk nupps, wool nupps, and maybe some regular silk cocoons and Indonesian silk cocoons.

It's going to be a fun week! I hope it doesn't get too hot, otherwise it will be a little miserable in the dye kitchen...

Grey, Grey, Grey and More Grey With a Touch of Wet

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Okay, after two months, the rain is starting to get me down. The metal bits on the spokes of my bubble umbrella are starting to rust. The cuffs of my pants are wet. I don't want to leave the house anymore.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for some brightly coloured dye pots, I think!

Summer at Liberty!

I am free! Free of school, at least for a little bit. I'm also free from work, which is a little worrisome, but I've mostly said "Eff it!" at this point. I have a lot of things to make! Fibre to spin! I have a loom I haven't used in years, and a spinning wheel that needs putting together still. 15 pounds of Merino top to dye! Bins of fibres and sparklies to blend together! And my newest endeavor--books to make!

There are tea cozies in the works for my favourite local tea shop, World Tea House. There will be lovely books with felted covers.. maybe yarn journals, or tea journals? Anyway, pretty books to pet and write secret things in.

So many things to make! So many lakes and beaches to swim! So many places to camp!

I hope summer comes soon.

Art Attack!

This morning was my second stint of doing a spinning demo at the Alderney Gate library. This morning I was in the children's section, and there were lots of other activities happening for the Art Attack programming. It was mainly interested moms that sat down and chatted with me, asking questions while I spun some wool. The kids were all tearing around with cool rock sculptures and balloon animals.

Wedensday the 20th at 10am I'll be back down on the main floor of Alderney Gate library, doing some more spinning. I will be plying together the work from the two previous days. Come out and see!

Wow. That went quickly.

Or at least it seemed to! That's right, I have burned through 20 pounds of merino top since January. And now I have to get more if I want to have stock for the Halifax Crafters show on December 4th and 5th.

I will be posting pictures shortly of all the luscious locks and top I have dyed int eh past two weeks. If you are going to the Spinners Retreat this weekend on PEI, Mimi from The Loop will have a bunch of my fibre (top and batts!) for sale.

The UberMom Has Left the Building

The UberMom came for another visit, and yesterday we went on our fibre tour of the Annapolis Valley. We hit the Avonport Discount Centre for awesome quilting fabrics, then the Just Us! in Grand Pre, and then finally Gaspereau Valley Fibres! I accidentally bought supplies to make quilts at Avonport, like I needed another hobby! At Gaspereau I bought two bags of Indonesian Silk Cocoons! They are so beautiful, I will have to take pictures of them. They look like the golden ghosts of leaves. I'm very excited about them, I think I will try dyeing them like the Yarn Wench does.

It's been a busy few days with the UberMom--we also ended up at Michael's while she was helping me look for a davenport for my den. I bought a dolphin no-count cross stitch to do for my boyfriend for his birthday. He pretends to hate dolphins really vehemently, so we all give him dolphin things for his birthday. I really want to find him one of those cheesy fleece blankets with some dolphins on them this year, too. His serious gift is going to be a proper martini shaker.

A davenport (or FlipFlip as they are sometimes called) was finally acquired at Ashley Furniture Warehouse. It will be ready sometime in October. It is red because Red Is Best.

The UberMom left early this morning. While it was still cool in the house I made two loaves of banana bread for my tattoo artist because I have an appointment today. I must love him a lot, my house is inching up to sauna again. Ick.

The UberMom Cometh!

Yup, the UberMom is visiting, and we will hopefully hit up some fibre and fabric shops while she's here. Tangled Skeins, maybe Gaspereau Vally Fibres? LK is in the neighbourhood, and maybe we'll pop by The Loop, too. So much fibre, so little time!

In other news, I am dancing at Masq on Saturday the 22nd, and at Women Who Rock on June 5th, and it looks like there is a big Serpentine Circus show later on in June. So very exciting!

Also among the excitement is starting library school in the fall. Sweet ass. I'm going to be a kickin' librarian!

Gaspereau Valley Fibres...

This morning I was up bright and early to go on a field trip to the Annapolis Valley with my local spinning and weaving guild, ASH. Much fun was had on the ride down as I got to meet someone I hadn't met before, a sassy older Scottish lady who'd done a lot of travelling in her youth and had lots of interesting stories to tell. Our other travelling companion had also lived up north, and they both made me want to give it a try! Maybe after I finish my MLIS...

Anyway, Gaspereau Valley Fibres was lovely as usual, and I restrained myself and only spent $80, all on fibre for blending and spinning. I got 194g of delicious wool/silk top in sunny orange/yellow with a bit of chartreuse, and I bought 200g each of some beautiful fleeces--white and coloured English Leicester, and a beautiful dark Romney with delicious crimp that I think I will spin in the grease. Yum! We chattered and poked about in all the fibre and yarn and books, and played with the new Ashford Wild Carder drum carder, and then piled back in the vehicles to go Blomidon Inn for lunch. It was a great way to spend the morning!

I've been up to a lot of dyeing as well--I bought 20 pounds(!!!) of Merino top in January, and I've been dyeing a few pounds of it a week for sale at the next Halifax Crafters Market on April 17th & 18th, and also for sale at The Loop.

The first picture is to show you what 20 pounds of Merino top looks like...

Next up are of some of the top I've dyed, and a bit of fleece that reminds me of the Golden Fleece from the Greek myths of Jason and the Argonauts.

Socks and Trilobites

I have started on a lifelong sock yarn addiction, I think. It's so pretty! And knitting sock on teeny tiny needles is startlingly fun! Right now I Lickety Split on the needles, in Fleece Artist Sea Wool. that I got at LK Yarns. No button placket, no intarsia, I just wanted split toe socks. I also have some Jaywalkers (Ravelry link only) on the go in some crazy bright Crazy Zauberball. How could I resist a yarn like that? Crazy.

I also just started Trilobite because I saw Louise's at LK - it was SO CUTE. I'm using aran weight yarn I got at the WWKIP Day swap because hers turned out small. I have a biggish noggin. And also, the yarn is very very pretty and I wanted to start it as soon as I got home.

Happy WWKIP Day!

I will be on the Spring Garden Rd. Library lawn (or inside if it rains) hanging out with all the awesome knitters. I am giving a spinning demo, and I donated a couple of prizes to the cause. Come out and play!

The UberMom Visits!

And we went to Gaspereau Valley Fibres, mecca of all fibre-y goodness. Between us we spent $200--some of hers was on fibre for me, and some fibre for me to spin up for her. We were in there at least an hour petting everything! UberMom also bought some yarn.

I've been spinning up a storm now that's it's not constantly gross and muggy. Hopefully there will be pictures soon.

Bounty!

My lovely friend Erin is heading across the country this summer, and in true nomadic style has sold or given away most of her possessions. Before she left home, she sent me a box packed to the gills with fleece and top and rovings and batts. This box had no straight lines left to it, the poor abused thing!

Here is my bounty:



(Please note that the red that is at the foot of my wheel and also dangling from the bobbin was not a part of the haul.)

Now, contained in those many many bags are some treasures, or so I hear tell. Angora/silk/wool blends, Romney, camel, to name but a few. And how excited am I? About as excited as this poor beleaguered box is empty: